The present invention relates generally to on-demand resource allocation, and relates more particularly to resource planning for messaging services. Specifically, the invention is a method and apparatus for on-demand management of messaging jobs.
In order to effectively compete in today's telecommunication market, service providers and enterprises are turning toward unified messaging technology. Unified messaging platforms (e.g., Voice over IP—or VoIP) and applications thereof such as voice mail transcription are typically characterized by real-time constraints, predictable processing times and some tolerance to loss.
Hard deadlines and estimated service times are associated with incoming requests (e.g., voicemails to be transcribed or VoIP packets) to unified messaging services, and failure to meet a deadline will result in a dismissal of the request; quality of service is defined by the proportion of requests successfully processed. Computing resources such as servers and message or packet proxies, relays or routers are used to process requests, and these resources must be allocated in a way that processes incoming requests in a timely and efficient manner. Conventional on-line scheduling systems for unified messaging systems tend to process incoming requests on a first come, first served basis, i.e., in the order in which the requests are received. Processing deadlines or estimated processing times are not considered in establishing the order in which requests are processed. Consequently, resources may not be optimally allocated to process incoming requests, resulting in many requests being only partially processed, or not processed at all, by the time their deadlines expire. To reduce losses, it is often necessary to allocate additional resources to process requests, thereby increasing the costs of operation. It is therefore desirable that an existing unified messaging service system be optimized so that the proportion of lost or dismissed requests does not exceed a predetermined threshold.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for on-demand resource planning for unified messaging services.